TEMPLE OF THE GRAIL - a Novel

by Adriana Koulias

  The cook became hysterical, laughing and spitting and coughing, and for a moment I saw a hint of his former self in his eyes. ‘Fairly! Too late, preceptor, for fairness, I am like un cerdo – a pig the day of the feast of St John. There is no hope for me. Now I am the one who is cooked, no?’

  ‘Tell me, so that I might relieve your distress. If you are honest with me I can save your life, for I have a letter sealed with the king’s seal. I am to return with all those accused! Did you poison the old brothers?’

  ‘I did not kill anyone!’ he cried.

  ‘Then how did you come by the substance?’

  ‘What?’ The man’s face was suddenly inscrutable.

  ‘The substance that induces your visions!’

  ‘I saw la Virgen! La Virgen!’

  ‘Tell me for I know you have abused some forbidden thing. Tell me or we shall soon see what the inquisitor thinks of it.’

  The man blanched. ‘Porel amor de díos! I did not kill anyone . . . I only . . . the honey !

  ‘Honey?’

  The man looked about him, and lowered his voice to a loud boom, ‘What Rodrigo is told, Rodrigo does, as penance . . .’

  ‘What did you do? I lose my patience, come now!’

  The great man trembled. ‘Sí ...sí . . . before you came here, preceptor, I was told to take some miel, some honey, and put it in a pot, in this I put dry herbs given to me and I was to leave it aside for the old monks. Sometimes I dip raisins in it, sometimes it is poured into wine in the rooms of the old ones, to make it sweet. One day, María Santísima, I had a drink of it . . . vos sabeís, yo también soy muy curioso . . . I am curious like you, I wanted to know what makes it so special . . .’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘She came . . . so dry was my mouth and I feel the heart, beating, and I fly to her . . . Ahh! But he found out, he was very angry muy nervioso – very nervous. Never do it, he told me . . . but I want to see la Virgen, no? I went to Brother Asa I told him I need some hierbas from the herbarium for the food. He let me in. I remember what the herbs look like and took a bunch to dry over the fire . . .’

  I was suddenly struck, for now I knew two things. Firstly, I remembered seeing the cook doing exactly as he said when I waited outside the blacksmith’s workroom, the day my master was hit on the head. Secondly, I was beginning to see why I had been having the strange sensations! The dreams! It was the wine!

  ‘Who asked you to prepare the honey, and who told you never to taste it?’

  The man hesitated.

  ‘Who told you, cook?’

  ‘The old man, he told me it was for the old monks. He said if I ever opened my mouth he would tell the abbot my secret.’

  ‘Setubar . . .’ said my master pensively, ‘The poison . . . on the raisins . . . and also in the wine . . . but Brother Samuel died quickly, only moments after entering the tunnels. The raisins, the wine, were poisoning the brothers slowly over a period of time in order to evade suspicion. Tell me about the tunnels!’

  ‘Tunnels?’

  ‘Answer me for I know that you are responsible for taking food to them!’

  ‘How? Who?’

  ‘I have seen you with my own eyes.’

  ‘Madre mía!’ The man was aghast, and so, too, was I.

  ‘Tell me everything.’

  ‘The secret! I have been sworn . . .’

  ‘Tell me! You must tell me!’ my master said a little roughly.

  ‘The hidden manna!’ the man exclaimed, falling to his knees. ‘I was told one cannot know the secret and live.’

  ‘But you are alive,’ my master pointed out.

  ‘I could not speak and the old man knew it . . . He said if ever I opened my mouth he would tell the abbot my secret. Do not ask me of the ghosts that are not ghosts, for ghosts do not eat! I did this as penance for sins, but if I tell you what I know, you will help me?’

  ‘That depends on what you know.’

  He thought for a moment, weighing things up. ‘There are twelve,’ he whispered finally, for he was in the grip of far too many fears to worry about one more. ‘They are called the ‘silent ones’, I know there are twelve because I am told to take them twelve bowls of broth, and twelve measures of bread . . .’

  ‘Should there not be thirteen?’ I asked, ‘including the boy?’

  ‘You know of the boy?’ The man trembled, visibly afraid. ‘I . . . I . . . his name is not known, I have never seen him, others have, but only a few, only the old ones who bring him here . . . he was solito, alone, away from everyone, living in his own room only, close to the abbot since he came, years ago. They say that all those years the ‘silent ones’ have been ‘teaching him’, and so he visits the tunnels, the catacombs . . . this is well known, all know of it, but few speak.’

  ‘Who are these ‘silent ones’?’

  ‘They are hermits . . . who knows?’ He shrugged his shoulders and winced with pain. ‘No one sees them, I leave food behind the drapes, I am told to leave inmediatamente.’ He looked at me with his good eye and nodded his head. ‘Because to see one of them is to lose the sight. That is why Ezekiel was going blind . . . they say also that they are transparente, that the bile and blood in their bodies is seen like through glass because they have seen no sun, others say that they are older than this monastery! That they never die! Maria Santa! The day you come something happens that is very suspicious . . . the abbot ordered absolute silencio, forbidding anyone to go out from his cell except for the officio, then the boy disappeared.’

  ‘How do you know he disappeared if you have never seen him?’

  ‘Because I always make him a special plate, never meat, only a little fish, the best from my kitchen . . . ese día, that day, the abbot told me, ‘Rodrigo, do not make him any more food’, saying that he was fasting. Everyone knows he is in the tunnel.’

  ‘Fasting . . .’ my master said, pulling feverishly on his beard, ‘and what does everyone say he is doing there?’

  ‘María Santa! He is learning the secret that no man can live who knows it. The secret of the hidden manna!’ As he uttered these words he must have recalled that he would soon give credence to them and cried, ‘Please you must help me! Estoy muerto! I am dead!’

  ‘I will see . . . I will see,’ my master said softly, ‘where is the poisoned honey and wine kept?’

  ‘In the larder, a clay pot with a crooked handle on the top shelf. The honey is also there in another. María Santa! You will help me? I tell you everything I know . . .’

  ‘We shall try, but for now we must go . . . Come, Christian.’ He pulled at my arm and we left the poor creature sobbing into his enormous, twisted hands.

  ‘But, master . . .’ I said as we braved a battering of hail. ‘How did you know he had taken the same substance that poisoned the brothers?’

  Once in the kitchen, now deserted, he answered me. ‘Remember when we were in the tunnels I told you about witch’s potion whose principal element is atropa belladonna?’

  ‘Yes, it makes those who take it feel as though they were flying into the arms of Satan . . . I must tell you –’

  ‘Do not interrupt my thoughts, boy! Now . . . the day in the kitchen, the herb drying above the fire was the first clue, when he then said that he flew into the arms of the Virgin . . . a natural conclusion.’

  ‘But flying into the arms of the Virgin and into the arms of Satan are not the same thing, master.’

  ‘Essentially they are, for if you will remember our discussion on the suggestive powers of magicians, you will know why the cook, under the power of such a drug, sees the Virgin, while a witch sees Satan.’

  ‘So to understand it a little clearer, the drug only induces the vision that is sought by the organism using it.’

  ‘To put it another way, the effect of the drug often corresponds to the disposition of its user.’

  ‘And so I flew into the arms of a woman. I saw bees flying, and eagles . . . I somehow flew to the encampment outside,’ I said miserably because this mea
nt that my dreams were no more prophetic than a sneeze, forgetting how many times they had aided us in our investigations. I told him then of my suspicions about the wine that I had taken.

  ‘That also explains your strange behaviour . . . Lucky for you, you must not have consumed enough to kill you.’ Seeing that I was sufficiently contrite, he continued, ‘Yes, the flying symptom is the physical one, the other effect has its origin in the mind . . . the wine. Brother Ezekiel drank a great deal of it the night that he died.’

  ‘But that wine was meant for you, master.’

  ‘Yes . . . perhaps someone was as careless as has happened with you.’

  ‘May I ask you another question, master? How did you know that it was the cook who was involved in the murder of Piero?’

  ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘So, he implicated himself because he thought you knew? But then how did you know that he supplied the food for the twelve monks of the catacombs?’

  ‘It is quite simple,’ he answered, ‘even you would remember how that night we inspected the panel in the transept chapel, we were disturbed by a monk whom we later observed carrying something in his hands?’

  ‘Yes!’ I cried, astounded at my own stupidity. ‘He went behind the drapes then left immediately, just as the cook said. But how did you know that it was food?’

  ‘Think, boy! Think! Do you not remember our sojourn to the tunnels? When we observed that the twelve ghosts were indeed as human as you or I? I knew then, as you or any novice except stupid ones should know, that they must somehow have access to food.’

  ‘But it could have been anyone.’

  ‘The only people who have access to the kitchen between the hours of compline and matins are those who hold the keys, namely, Brother Macabus or Rodrigo the cook.’

  ‘But from memory Brother Macabus said that the cook was to bring him the keys before the service of compline, and we saw him at the north transept chapel at about the eleventh hour, before the service of matins.’

  ‘Precisely and this he does every night. How many times since our arrival have you seen the cook, or anyone for that matter, deliver Brother Macabus the keys before compline begins? There must be times when he keeps the keys. This morning, for instance, Brother Macabus could not open the aperture for us because he did not have them. Sometimes, in order to escape suspicion, the cook or – in this case someone else – simply does not lock the kitchen, as we saw that first night when we found we could not leave through the aperture, and as we passed the kitchen I remarked that it was odd to see only the outer cookhouse door locked, and not also the inner door.’

  ‘Still, you had very little evidence, master, a few clues, nothing of substance, and yet when you spoke to the cook, you sounded so sure of everything.’

  ‘Yes,’ he reflected, ‘this particular situation – unlike the situation with the brother librarian – called for a more forthright manner.’

  ‘I see!’ I said, suddenly enlightened. ‘When one knows a great deal, one interrogates with prudence, pretending to know very little, so that the suspect will be unguarded and therefore make a slip of the tongue. On the other hand, when one knows very little, one pretends to know a great deal, thereby intimidating the subject into admitting things he would not have otherwise because he thinks that you already know everything!’

  ‘Yes . . . that is it, more or less.’

  I was elated at this splendid insight into human nature. ‘Brother Setubar must be the killer! He killed all the brothers with the poisoned raisins and wine.’

  ‘And yet we still have our poor brothers Jerome and Samuel whose deaths remain unexplained . . . I am not convinced on either point. We must not be tempted to draw conclusions until we are satisfied that we have gathered all the relevant information available to us . . . on the other hand, what we see with our eyes is very often more reliable than what we hear with our ears,’ he said as we entered the larder, hurrying, for we could hear the service ending.

  ‘Master?’ I asked as we searched.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you think it odd that twelve men live underground? Surely they must come up sometime for air or confession? How must they survive?’

  ‘Life is stubborn, Christian, the more a man punishes the flesh in order to ignore it the more attention he gives it, and the more he abhors life and longs for death the longer he seems to live. These hermits must sleep in underground cells, and may even have a chapel in which to pray. That is not as uncommon as it may appear at first.’

  ‘I see. But who has been taking their food to the north transept while the cook has been detained?’

  ‘That is a good question.’

  We failed to find the poisoned substances, however, and this sent my master into a frustrated rage.

  ‘By the curse of Saladin!’ he swore under his breath. ‘Someone has either removed it, or . . .’ He paused for a moment, frowning. ‘Of course!’ He slapped me on the nape. ‘Why did you not think of it? It stands to reason . . . he has already killed them all . . . that is, except himself!’

  ‘Why should I have thought of it when you did not think of it either until just now?’ I asked, a little hurt.

  ‘You are right. Let us go to the infirmary. Asa, the dutiful student must know where his master Setubar is, if he is not already dead by his own hand.’

  Outside, the inquisitor’s men were still looking for Brother Setubar, the abbot, too, had sent monks in every direction. They called the old brother’s name into the wet nothingness, but there was no answer.

  We made our way to the infirmary in haste. My master ordered the guard to stand aside, and this he did almost by reflex, and we entered, closing the door behind us.

  We found Asa tending to the young boy whose leg had been so badly broken. He was bending over the young man’s face, looking into his eyes, checking his pulse. When he heard us enter, he turned around, a little startled. ‘Preceptor.’ In his hand a strange glass object, on the bed the velvet pouch that I had seen him replace hastily in the drawer the day that the cook had started the fire. ‘I hear agitation outside,’ he said, trying now to hide his implement, though he knew it was hopeless. We both had seen it.

  ‘How is our patient?’ My master walked over to the boy and checked his pupils.

  The infirmarian shook his head. ‘Unwell, he has a fever.’

  ‘Help me to lift him a little then, Asa, I would like to listen to his chest.’

  The man hesitated, looking at us like a hare cornered by two bloodthirsty hounds.

  ‘What is wrong? Are your hands full? What do you have there?’

  The other man narrowed his eyes and, with great hesitation, showed my master. ‘It is a wonderful thing, preceptor. It measures the temperature of the corpus.’

  My master looked at it in awe. A long cylindrical glass whose base ballooned out a little and whose interior seemed to hold some substance.

  ‘How does one read it?’ my master asked, most intrigued.

  ‘Well . . .’ the other man became excited, ‘one places this end,’ he pointed to the rounded segment, ‘in the patient’s anus, or in his mouth. Inside the glass there is alcohol. When it is heated the gas expands and it travels up this chamber, indicating the extent of a patient’s fever.’

  ‘I am astounded! It is very clever. Did you devise it? Better still, what do you say is the normal and abnormal temperature?’

  The man looked down shyly. ‘I am not certain of its accuracy. I have simply marked incremental numbers along its side, and have come to know, after using it on both the healthy and the sick, where an unhealthy temperature differs from a healthy one . . . The glass maker and I have spent many hours perfecting it. You see the glass must not be too thick or it does not work efficiently. Also there is the added problem of the alcohol . . .’

  ‘Why, it is a marvel! You are a credit to your calling,’ he said with genuine admiration and warmth.

  ‘I have been hiding it from Brother Setubar . . . he would think it a sinfu
l tool of the Devil. He would rather see men die than rely on earthly things to effect a cure. In this way he is not so different from the inquisitor.’ There was bitterness in his voice, but his mention of Setubar brought us back to the purpose of our visit.

  ‘Brother Asa, we are looking for your master,’ Andre said, in a grave tone, ‘has he been here?’

  ‘Here? No . . . Why, has something happened to him?’

  ‘He is nowhere to be found and we fear for his life.’

  The infirmarian looked down, but he did not seem upset. ‘It is no secret . . . he did not like me, anyone will tell you, and yet I have always been, and shall remain, a good student. I must confess, however, that if he is dead, I will not mourn him,’ he ended in bitterness.

  ‘We believe that he has taken the poison with him that has killed so many. You have not seen him?’

  ‘You are not suggesting that he was the murderer?’

  ‘Was?’

  ‘I mean, is, of course . . .’ Asa corrected at once.

  ‘I do not know . . .’ my master eyed him penetratingly. ‘What were you going to tell me about Samuel that day we were interrupted, something about his last words . . .?’

  ‘Oh, yes, he said that he was flying. Those were his words . . . flying, just like Ezekiel . . .’

  At that moment the bell tolled the commencement of the inquiry. Before anything else could be said two archers stormed in and took Asa away. My master called out to the larger of the two, ordering that he find Eisik and bring him to the infirmary. I thought he was about to perform an examination on the patient but instead he walked out of the dormitory and into the laboratory where Brother Daniel’s body lay on the examination table, covered and still. I was not accustomed to death, even after so many years at my master’s side a shiver still ran through me at the sight of a body covered by a sheet.

  ‘If Asa had told us that little piece of information earlier we would have come by our conclusions sooner . . . No matter . . . we must find Setubar!’ He walked to the door that led to the infirmary chapel. ‘Anselmo intimated that there was some clue here . . .’ It was bolted shut, but my master, in one of his moments of physical exuberance, managed to prise it open with an iron poker that he found by the fire.